Tips For Avoiding Thigh Injuries
Posted on: 5 January 2017
If you are a person that likes to exercise or play sports, there's a good chance that you want to avoid injuries as much as possible. You probably want to ensure that you are able to continue to exercise and play the sports that you love without having to recover from a pulled muscle. One commonly injured muscle is the thigh muscle. The most common injuries are pulled quadriceps and pulled hamstrings. Here are some tips for avoiding pulling these muscles so that you can significantly reduce the risk of thigh injuries.
1. Loosen Your Muscles
The first thing that you want to do is actually take the time to stretch out your quadriceps and your hamstrings. You can stretch out your quadriceps by standing on one foot and pulling the opposite foot back towards your butt. Do this until you can feel a pull in your quadriceps and then hold for fifteen to thirty seconds. Repeat with your other leg.
You can stretch your hamstrings by sitting on the floor with one leg straight out in front of your and the other leg tucked in so that your foot is against the inner thigh of your opposite leg. Lean forwards towards the outstretched food and reach out with the corresponding arm. Hold for fifteen to thirty seconds and then relax. Repeat the process but stretch out the opposite leg. This will allow you to greatly loosen up your thigh muscles. Muscles get strained when they are tight and you try to move them quickly. Loosening them reduces the chance of injury.
2. Amp Up Slowly
Avoid increasing the intensity of your exercise, such as running, by more than 10% each week. This will give your body a chance to get used to the speed or incline at which you are running during that week so that you can increase the intensity the following week and not get injured. Increasing the intensity very quickly will increase the chances that your muscles will not be prepared for it and that you will suffer a strain.
3. Warm Up More When It's Cold Outside
Finally, if you are running or doing some other exercise outside, take more time to stretch and warm up than you would in warm weather. The reason for this is that the cold weather is going to cause your stretches to take longer to effectively loosen your muscles.
For more information, talk to a doctor that specializes in sports injuries, such as Dr. Lisa M. Schoene.
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